want. The diggers or adventurers, arriving at a particular spot, and finding no gold, sought for some one on whom to cast the blame. One particular individual, living in the neighbourhood, had been one of the first to make the announcement of gold at Canoona; the disappointed and half-maddened people, rushing to an illogical conclusion with the same heedlessness with which they had rushed to the diggings, accused him of being the cause of their miseries; and he was placed in imminent peril of "lynching." The captains of all the ships were received with fierce abuse, on the ground that the shipowners had, by their exaggerated advertisements, contributed to the misery.' In later years, the gold-deposits of this part of Australia were steadily worked with a fair profit; but the opening scenes in 1858 were indeed desperate. We have stated that these diggings are in Queensland, but at the time of the discovery they were included in New South Wales-the colony not having been divided into two until 1859.

GOLD IN ALL COUNTRIES.

Although two particular regions of the globe have been marked by these extravagant social convulsions, arising out of the discovery of the precious metal in unexpected places, yet the extraction and commerce in gold have taken more regular forms in other countries, and from a very early period in the world's history. Until the Californian discoveries took place, the chief sources of supply in modern times were Brazil, Hungary, Transylvania, and Asiatic Russia. During a long series of years, the gold mines of these four countries yielded to the value of about £5,000,000 annually. Brazil, however, as well as Peru, New Granada, and other parts of South America, have gradually fallen off; because the auriferous sand, easily gathered, has become well nigh exhausted; and because South America does not possess much of the machinery necessary for the profitable extraction of the small percentage of metal contained in gold quartz. Hungary and Transylvania, in like manner, have somewhat declined in recent years as gold-producing countries.

Russia, especially in the Asiatic provinces, has gradually assumed a somewhat important position in regard to this source of national wealth. Nominally, there is great individual freedom in the search for gold; but practically much of the produce finds its way into the pockets of officials, who cheat both the revenue and the diggers. The adventurer may search on any spot not already appropriated, after certain formalities with the officials. The gold is found mostly in grains and small fragments in the sandy bed of streams. The actual workmen employed by the adventurer are mostly the unfortunates who have been banished to Siberia, and who are permitted to earn a little money in this way under a system of licensing. When the washings of one season are collected, the adventurer takes

his gold-dust and fragments to a government establishment. The gold is weighed, melted down, and poured into iron ingot-moulds, each of which, if full, would contain about thirty-six pounds avoirdupois. The ingot is assayed, and its value per ounce declared. In all these proceedings there are many loopholes for bribery, favouritism, and fraud; and much of the precious metal sticks (metaphorically) to the hands of the officials. The weighing, melting, assaying, and registering being concluded, the gold is sent to St Petersburg, and lodged in the royal mint. When coined into money, a certain percentage is retained by the state, for the expenses of transport, &c., and the remainder transmitted in cash to the owner. Some years ago it was stated that the owner seldom received so much as three-fourths of the registered value, owing to the doubtful nature of the officialism concerned in the matter; but possibly matters may have improved since. Mr Cottrell, one of the few observant English travellers in Siberia, has given the following account, to illustrate the precarious nature of goldseeking in this region. A Russian gentleman, M. Astaschef, retired from government service, in order to become a gold-speculator. He borrowed forty thousand roubles from a merchant named Popof, who had made money by gold-speculation; and then joined partnership with a third person, M. Riazanof, who had spent no less than two hundred thousand roubles before finding any auriferous sands worth working. The partners made a lucky examination of the sands of a small stream, and agreed that each should take one bank or side. They realised wealth rapidly, and then established a company, of which they were appointed managers. Astaschef was reported a millionaire after the lapse of a few years; the tide of fortune had turned with him just in time; for thirty-five thousand out of his forty thousand borrowed roubles were expended before he hit upon the golden stream, which was in the government of Yeniseisk, between the rivers Touba and Kan. Another rich spot owned by him was near the boundary between the governments of Yeniseisk and Irkutsk. Russia has occasionally yielded gold, in her Siberian provinces chiefly, to the value of £4,000,000 in one year, but generally the quantity has been much less. The great start, from one or two to three or four millions sterling in a year, was made in 1842, consequent on new discoveries in the provinces of Tomsk and Yeniseisk. One of the largest nuggets the world has ever seen, valued at three thousand pounds, was ferreted out of the sands in Siberia.

In various other parts of Asia, besides Siberia, gold has been found, and for a much more considerable length of time; but the quantity in recent years has not been so great as to attract the attention of Europe. Africa, it is well known, contains gold, chiefly (so far as has been ascertained) in the sands and mud of rivers. Indeed, one part of the Atlantic sea-board of that continent has received the name of the Gold Coast, owing to the fact that the

natives, finding gold in the interior, bring it down for sale at the European settlements on the coast.

Passing over to the new continent, we have already stated that South America does not now occupy any very conspicuous position in regard to gold mines. The prosperity of the trade in that region culminated about a century ago, when the auriferous sands were very rich. Small gold-mining establishments are scattered about in Brazil, and in some of the numerous republics of South and Central America; but the sands are nearly exhausted; and the extraction of the precious metal from quartz is effected on a system so rude as to yield only a small margin of profit. Silver, in South and Central America, as well as in the Mexican provinces of North America, is now a more important metal than gold, so far as regards mines and mining.

Of the wonders of California we have treated at length, in reference to the wild excitement consequent on the gold-discoveries; we may here usefully say a few words concerning the amount of wealth realised. By the middle of 1852, when the Californian diggings had been at work about four years and a half, gold had been raised to the estimated value of £35,000,000-an average of £600,000 per month. Fourteen years later, in 1866, California claimed to have sent into the market 38,000,000 ounces of gold, valued at £150,000,000; and we cannot be far wrong in setting down £200,000,000 as the approximate value down to the end of 1869 a marvellous addition to the wealth of one single country.

British Columbia, another large region in North America, entered the list of gold-yielding countries about the year 1858. This, the youngest of England's colonies, is further north than California, but is, like it, confined between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific. The Fraser River, one of the streams flowing from the mountains to the ocean, is rich in gold; and it is a curious coincidence, that as gold was discovered in California almost at the time of the annexation of that region to the United States, so was a similar discovery made on the shores of the Fraser directly after the formation of British Columbia into an English colony in 1858-it having previously been a mere hunting-ground in the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company. The discovery was sudden, and was promising enough to draw numerous gold-diggers from California. A letter, written in the early summer of 1858, said: "The gold exists from the mouth of Fraser River for at least two hundred miles up, and most likely much farther. Any one working on its banks has been able to obtain gold in abundance, and without extraordinary labour; the gold at present obtained has been within a foot of the surface. Thompson River is quite as rich in gold as Fraser River. The land about Thompson River consists of extensive sandy prairies, which are loaded with gold also; in fact, the whole country about both rivers is impregnated with it. I have already seen pounds and

pounds of it, and hope before long to feast my eyes upon tons of the precious metal; but not a bit of it, unfortunately, is my own. Before three months are over our heads, we expect to see at least 50,000 miners at work.' A correspondent of the Times told how precarious was the life of those who reached the diggings without money, and did not immediately find gold: 'Those who have money to pay for provisions, can have enough on the spot [at exorbitant prices]. Those who have no money must starve. The alternative is as clear as the sun at noonday. They can neither buy food nor leave the place. They cannot spread themselves over the country, for the following reasons: the banks of the river, high up where the miners are congregated, are steep and lofty perpendicular walls of rock, which cannot be scaled; while the other portions of its banks are covered with impenetrable forests, without a track or a trail, which they dare not penetrate for fear of the Indians.' Some spots, supposed to be very rich in gold, were so difficult of access as to present the following picture: 'A man has to carry his provisions in blankets, on his back, up a laborious ascent in hot weather. He cannot carry over fifty pounds in weight, besides his traps, tools, and firearms. He takes several days to perform the journey; at its termination, one-third or more of his stock of provisions has been used on the tramp. He digs, and digs successfully; but as he is in a wilderness where his supplies cannot be renewed, after a few days' work, he must hurry down before his little stock of eatables is exhausted; or if he remains until he shall have eaten it all, he dies of hunger. There is no relief for him. So he comes back with some gold, but not much. Several are said to have perished of hunger in this upper region.' Nevertheless, as the gold was unquestionably there, and in large quantity, adventurers conquered all other difficulties one by one; and Fraser River and its tributaries assumed a definite rank among auriferous regions. It was soon ascertained that the gold in the river-sands was the mere washings from more copious deposits in the rocks above; and road-makers by degrees hewed a path upwards. On the other side, hardy men from Canada, Red River, and Minnesota, pushed their way westward across the Rocky Mountains, and entered the golden regions by a new route. It is not easy to say what amount of gold has been raised in British Columbia; because, California being nearer, and more accessible, much of the gold finds its way thither, and figures in statistical accounts rather as a produce of the United States than of a British dependency. We find, however, the following sums mentioned as the value of the bullion and specie exported from British Columbia: £1,750,000 in 1864; £1,000,000 in 1865; £1,050,000 in 1866; and £700,000 in 1867. It is evident that we have only got hold of part of the facts here; the item for 1867 can only be a percentage of the value of the gold actually raised in that year.

Another portion of North America, Nova Scotia, entered the lists as a humble competitor with California and British Columbia in 1861. In the summer of that year, a man stooping to drink at a brook discovered something glittering in the water, at a place called Old Tangier : it proved to be gold. Soon afterwards, the precious metal was found at New Tangier, at a distance of less than a mile from the sea. Numerous other lucky spots were hit upon; and gold-washing and quartz-crushing became regular employments. One of the gold-fields, Laidlaw Diggings, is within a dozen miles of Halifax, the capital of the colony; and it possesses gold in the forms of small nuggets, specks and scales, and gold quartz. A "Nova Scotia Gold Company' was established, chiefly for obtaining gold from quartz, by well-arranged machinery, but also for washing auriferous sands. The colony has never yet presented such rich deposits as the other two regions of North America just noticed. But, on the other hand, there were less privations in store for the first adventurous diggers. The country was settled, and a large portion well cultivated; the necessaries of life were plentiful and cheap; while communication with the busy port of Halifax was short and easy-a port, too, within ten or eleven days of England by Cunard steamer. In this, as in other regions, careful observers have noted how different a thing it is to pick up nuggets of pure gold, and to extract laboriously a small percentage of the precious metal from the quartz. Captain Hardy, who sent an account of the Nova Scotia diggings to one of the English newspapers, after noticing a few instances of the more fortunate kind, said: 'But let it be stated for the information of individuals who may contemplate seeking their fortunes in these nearest of the yet-discovered American gold regions, that they are not in the least likely to repay the man who may embark without capital, expecting to hew out his golden treasure in large nuggets, and with little labour, from the narrow quartz veins which intersperse the clay-slate of the gold district. Without doubt, quartz-mining will repay companies organised to prosecute mining on an extensive scale, with capital, and with the requisite machinery for crushing the quartz; but I can aver that in the numerous instances of solitary gold-seekers working their narrow claims of some thirty feet square, which are purchased of the provincial government for £4, and on a year's lease, they have not been repaid for leaving their rightful trades and avocations.' Between 1861 and 1868, Nova Scotia produced 160,000 oz. of gold, value £63,000.

Australia we have already noticed, in connection with the feverish 'excitement which arose out of the discovery of gold in 1851. There, as in California, the population settled down by degrees into something like regular order. Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, benefited much more largely than Sydney, the chief city in New South Wales-partly because the produce in the first-named colony was